Published

About the product: “Seeing AI: A free app that narrates the world around you. Designed for the low vision community, this research project harnesses the power of AI to describe people, text, and objects.”

My observations from first use:

The first impression is a definite: “Wow”

As with most emerging technologies I’ve tried the post-wow moment is about: “So what might this be good for?”

Obviously, this is not a product designed for me. The persona is someone with completely different needs. It’s interesting to consider how a product like this, or Google Goggles and similar, might be used in our lives.

Immediate translation: I’ve used Google Goggles to demo the use case of reading a brochure in a different language and having it instantly show your default language. This is useful for tourism and infrastructure related such as Airports.

Quickly assessing product information: With the Seeing AI product, I’m able to scan a barcode and pull up information on the product. I wish it would read out loud the ingredients as the text is likely too tiny for the visually impaired to read.

There are many use cases for AI. Seeing AI is an interesting new product that could help the visually impaired. I hope the target persona find it useful.